Instagram is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms in the world. From a business standpoint, it makes sense to invest in this because it has a high engagement potential. The Instagram crowd is much more engaging to businesses when compared to other social media platforms.
Here, we are going to talk about what Instagram trends are going to work for your brand this year.
1. High Quality And Relevant Content
Content has always been a huge factor in getting more people interested. You should plan an Instagram campaign around great content that people can relate to. People have become much more selective about what they choose to interact with. This means that brands need to make sure that the content they exhibit can catch eyeballs.
As a general rule of thumb, brands with more attractive and effective content strategies get a lot of engagement. Authentic brands like Humans of New York have a huge following, and this is mainly due to their stellar content quality. The challenge for brands is to keep their Instagram feed interesting enough for their audience.
2. Create More Stories
Instagram Stories first came out in 2016, and ever since then, it has been a popular choice when it comes to users. And this is especially true for brands because a huge percentage of them say that Stories have enabled them to reach out to more customers. People find Instagram Stories easy to interact with and can access more interesting content through it.
Instagram Stories are a huge influencer on how brands are approaching customers now. It has a Swipe Up feature, which businesses can link directly to their store and make purchases easier. This is the only other way apart from bios to add links that users can access. You are also able to access thousands of customizations to your Stories. This includes stickers, gifs, sound effects, and filters. Polls through Stories have made it a much more interactive approach for brands to get feedback from their users.
3. Pitching To Influencers
Instagram Influencers are a big part of the marketing push by brands, and this year, they are still powerful platforms when used right. Influencers are people who have a lot of social clout in their niche. For example, Supercar Blondie is an Instagram Influencer who is big in the automobile domain. She has a lot of followers, and brands reach out for several branding opportunities.
If you’re a brand that is revamping its Insta marketing strategy, do make sure influencers are part of it. They are still a way to get a lot of people interested in your brand. You can also get a lot of new people for your audience, and it works much faster than other means of marketing.
4. Instagram Shopping Is Big
Something huge that Instagram offers is the ability for users to shop for an advertised product quickly. Ecommerce has been one of the biggest entities when it comes to commercial success. Most people today have an account on at least one eCommerce platform.
Instagram In-app Shopping combines the accessibility of social media with the power of eCommerce. People using Insta can buy things a lot easier, which makes the process of conversion a lot easier. Shoppable Posts have a shopping bag indicator that people can click to buy a product.
5. Cause Based Marketing
A trend that has caught on in recent times is the advent of cause-based marketing. This is especially relevant today with the pandemic. Social media users are particularly receptive to this as it is current and actionable. It also gets a lot of coverage and gets shared around much easier too.
As a brand, opting for marketing based on a specific cause can be really helpful. It can significantly improve your marketing strength. It also aligns your brand with a particular brand image based on the movements you support. If you are able to choose the right type of cause, your brand image will improve.
6. Live Content
When it comes to social media, live content is always preferred more than other forms of content. The reason is that people are much more interested to see what happens live. And since live video has the added advantage of the “fear of missing out” type of marketing, people are a lot keener with this type of content.
Make sure that your brand posts live videos when it can. It allows fans to interact with your brand in real-time. It can also generate considerable interest within the community.
7. Using The Explore Tab
The Explore tab on Instagram is an important part of every brand’s reach for its audience. Using this, people find brands that they haven’t yet followed or interacted with. Featuring on a user’s explore tab is the quickest way to get noticed and also increase your following.
As a brand, you need to make sure that you tick the right boxes when it comes to relevance. The aim is to get people who are relevant to your brand to subscribe to your feed.
8. Using Other Platforms
This is perhaps one of the most important parts of the social media experience, and its importance cannot be understated. The need is to get as much coverage for your content feed as possible. And this is only possible when you post cross-platform content.
Brands that want to grow quickly should get content out on different social media platforms. This ensures much faster growth and more coverage.
9. AR Gets Interesting
One of the latest technologies to be incorporated into marketing is augmented reality (AR). Brands are using this powerful and technologically advanced feature to get more people interested. The novelty factor attracts a lot of people, and they engage with these kinds of posts.
You can go one step further with customized AR effects exclusive to your brand. This can improve engagement as well as improve brand identity.
10. Better Transparency From Brands
Today, people are much more well informed and have stronger opinions about who they choose to do business with. And this has resulted in companies wanting to be more open to their audience and clients.
People are more appreciative of brands that they associate with being transparent with them. Being open tells people that they are trustworthy and have a better moral background. This leads to an improved brand image.
11. Using Instagram Reels
Instagram Reels are short 15-second videos that people find are a lot more interesting than traditional videos. This is modeled after TikTok and is now available to people all over the world.
The advantage is that Reels get shared a lot more than other formats. Also, as a brand, you get it featured easier on the Explore tab. When it does, you also get a notification. This is a more hands-on approach to marketing your brand.